American pygmy kingfisher


The American pygmy kingfisher is a resident breeding kingfisher which occurs in the American tropics from southern Mexico south through Central America to western Ecuador, and then around the northern Andes cordillera in the east to central Bolivia and central Brazil. The species occupies the entire Amazon basin and the Tocantins River drainage adjacent in Pará state Brazil. It also occurs on Trinidad.

Taxonomy

The first formal description of the American pygmy kingfisher was by the German zoologist Peter Simon Pallas in 1764 under the binomial name Alcedo aenea. The specific name aenea is from the Latin aeneus meaning "of a bronze colour". The current genus Chloroceryle was erected by Johann Jakob Kaup in 1848.
A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2006 found that the American pygmy kingfisher was a sister species to a clade containing the green-and-rufous kingfisher and the green kingfisher.
Two subspecies are currently recognized:
The American pygmy kingfisher is long and weighs. It has the typical kingfisher shape, with a short tail and long bill. It is oily green above, with a yellow-orange collar around the neck, rufous underparts and a white belly. The female has a narrow green breast band. Young birds resemble the adults, but have paler rufous underparts, no breast band, and speckled wings and flanks. The nominate southern C. a. aenea has two lines of white spots on the wings, while the northern C. a. stictoptera has three or four lines of spots and a concealed white patch of feathers on the undertail. The two forms intergrade in central Costa Rica.
The call is a gives a weak tik or stony cht cht.

Distribution and habitat

This tiny kingfisher occurs in dense forests and mangrove swamps along small streams or rivers with heavily vegetated banks. The unlined nest is in a horizontal tunnel up to long made in a river bank, earth heap, or occasionally an arboreal termite nest. The female lays three, sometimes four, white eggs.
American pygmy kingfishers perch quietly on a low branch close to water before plunging in head first after small fish or tadpoles. They will also hawk for insects. They are not shy, but easily overlooked as they sit silently amongst riverside branches.